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Pacific Beach Real Estate Market

This is not Tulsa, OK

If you have purchased a home before in a city other than Pacific Beach, you should not assume that the Pacific Beach real estate market will be a similar experience.

I had a past client tell me once,

“Oh, we know what the market is like. We purchased a home in Tulsa, OK”

This is not Tulsa.

This is not Chicago.

Think of all of the major cities in the US.

Then think of the major coastal cities, which tend to have more international demand.

Then think of the coastal towns within those cities.

Then think of the most popular tourist areas out of those towns.

That’s Pacific Beach.

Why am I sharing this with you? So that you understand that the Pacific Beach real estate market may be different than what you are used to. I want to set your expectations that Pacific Beach homes for sale may not sell for less than the listed price. You may not always be able to negotiate 10% off of the list price like you see in the tv shows or movies.

That’s not to say that deals cannot be found. Just that it’s important to understand the market or have a real estate agent who understands the market.

Pacific Beach Real Estate Market Statistics

Median sales price of houses and condos in Pacific Beach

Houses

Condos

As shown in the chart above, there is an upward trend for median sales price in Pacific Beach from 2012-2019.

The median list price for houses in the first half of 2019 for the Pacific Beach real estate market was: $1,354,500

The median sales price for houses in the first half of 2019 for the Pacific Beach real estate market was $1,325,000

This shows that for homes that sold in the Pacific Beach real estate market for the first half of 2019, sellers are getting approximately 97.82% of the listed price.

Additional information on these 2019 Pacific beach real estate market statistics that you should know:

Sellers tend to drop the price of their home the longer the home sits on the market. The listed price at the time of the sale may not be the original list price.

Sellers will sometimes suspend a listing, by either withdrawing the listing, expiring the listing or canceling the listing. When the home becomes “re-listed” with a new price, the new price is now the “list price” used for these numbers.

These numbers are medians, meaning that half of the homes sold for more than 97.82% of list price, and half of them sold for below that.

The median days on market for houses that sold in Pacific Beach in the first half of 2019 was 21 days.

The average days on market for houses that sold in Pacific Beach in the first half of 2019 was 30 days.

These numbers do not include time on the market for homes that did not sell, or homes that either were taken off of the active market, and then sold at a later time.

You need to know when a home will sell quickly, and possibly for more than list price.

You also need know when a home is overpriced, and can be purchased for a price below what it’s listed at.

Psychology of the Pacific Beach real estate market

Buy the perfect home that’s competitively priced, where you may have to offer more than list price?

Buy a home that is overpriced, has issues, and has been sitting on the market for a while where you can buy it at a discount?

There are good things about each situation.

There are people that get a “buyers high” whenever they feel like they have gotten a deal. People love deals, and people love feeling like they got a price that’s better than what someone else would have paid. So it’s natural for buyers to want to make an offer below list price to feel like they have gotten a deal.

However some of the best “buys” I’ve experienced have come from offering “list price” on the first day the home was on the market. Or offering more than list price when there are other offers

Why?

Because I knew there would be more offers coming soon, and it would sell for more than list price if there was a bidding war.

Houses are unique and losing “the one” probably means more than possibly over-paying by $5,000.